Wimbledon 2010: Oliver Golding's fine on the big stage

British hopeful Oliver Golding once auditioned for a bit part in the film
Wimbledon – a lucky escape frankly – but made amends on Saturday by
appearing in the Championship itself with a splendid 6-4, 6-2 win over
American Dennis Novikov in the boys singles championship.

In his former career Golding, 16, appeared in Mike Leigh's film, All or Nothing, co-starred with Christopher Lee in a feature-length film, The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby, and has also been in the West End version Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

"In one way, I think the acting has helped my tennis, because if you're playing in a big match you need to be comfortable in front of a crowd," says Golding.

"On the other hand, maybe the acting hasn't helped, as I'm less afraid to do things that I shouldn't do, such as getting angry during matches and showing my emotions too much, and throwing my racket." No such problems yesterday from a young man we could be on our screens, one way or another, for a long time.

Express delivery

Richard Branson's Virgin Trains should take a bow after rescuing a Wimbledon weekend for three Liverpool lads – Aaron Purcell, Daniel Grannon and Chris Thelwall.

The trio had just arrived in the big smoke late on Friday and were enjoying a beer in Clapham when Daniel went a horrible shade of green. Their Centre Court tickets were still on his mantlepiece in Birkenhead!

A quick call to a Liverpool courier company was answered with an unrealistic £800 quote for an overnight 'special' but Oliver's Mum, hotfooted it to Liverpool Lime Street Station in a taxi before dawn and persuaded the Virgin driver to deliver the tickets on his London train – they were duly collected soon after the 9.50am eased into Euston thirty seconds early.

Arrests on Court 18 for unruly behaviour, spitting. Whatever next!

Considering the torrents of booze poured down parched throats during Wimbledon fortnight crowd 'incidents' and protests have been few and far between but not entirely unknown During the 1957 Gentlemen's Doubles final a prescient Mrs Helen Jarvis from Croydon interrupted play by protesting loudly that we needed a new world banking system.

Alas she was frogmarched out although in retrospect she shouldhave been made Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Four years ago two protesters from the "Real Fathers for Justice" group sneaked onto Centre court during the first set of Roger Federer's game against Mario Ancic with rackets and ball and conducted a brief rally, one of the protesters hinting at a decent backhand.

A similar incident occurred in 2002 when two gentlemen who had dined well 'knocked up' prior to Tim Henman's game against Scott Draper before evading securing guards.

A not entirely sober male streaker enlivened proceedings that year during the ladies singles game between and Ms Shaparova and Miss Dementieva, neither of whom seemed over-impressed.